Educating Eos
by RVFan
Summary: What happened when John returned to 5
1. Chapter 1

**_Educating Eos_**

 ** _'_** ** _All the Hassle…' was intended to be a one-off but it was fun to do and got me thinking. I suppose I should finish stories I've already started and I will; just not today_** ** _J_** **** ** _. A couple of people wanted to know why John needed to go to a hospital; he didn't tell me and I know better than to ask – he's a private sort of guy. Not sure if this will be the last or whether there'll be more, so I'll leave it open-ended_** ** _J_**

 ** _I don't own anything I just enjoy playing with them and I'm very careful not to cause too much damage and pack everything away very carefully._**

John edged TB 3 closer to 5 for docking. He could have used the Space Elevator but Brains had carried out some upgrades on 3 and the brothers decided Alan would enjoy playing with his bird on the way home; a 'payment' for substituting the two weeks John had been away – double the estimated time, there was also the cargo carefully strapped in 3's hold – now that was going to be interesting. He hadn't figured out how he was going to make it up to Eos yet but she deserved some sort of compensation.

Alan was at the air lock, bags in hand, ready to jump aboard 3, but John blocked his way.

"Just hang on a minute Alan. You're going nowhere till I've checked 5 out. Eos, wait until I say it's OK to release the air lock please."

"I can't begin to tell you how GOOD it is to have you back." Was that emotion John heard in Eos' voice?

"Aww come on John, I can't wait to try her out."

"You're going to have to – I've seen your room back home remember. I need to see the state of my quarters before you go anywhere!"

John was striding along the ring; Alan half ran slightly ahead and turned towards John, arms flailing like a demented windmill.

"It's fine – you wont have to change the sheets or anything" Alan promised

"That's because you sleep on the floor. Don't know why dad wasted money buying you a bed."

"And I've done all my homework, I'm ahead – what do you think of that?"

"Do we have any garbage bags Eos?" John asked

"Not big enough for HIM." She retorted

"I don't know how you put up with her. She's driven me crazy!" Alan complained

"Enough – both of you!"

"But you're on my side – right? After all, I'm your brother."

Scott once said that John's stare could freeze an elephant in its tracks at 300 yards; Alan was the recipient this time.

"Don't count on it." John said quietly. The door to his quarters hissed open.

"Pizza boxes? How on earth did you get pizza delivered out here?"

"Promised I wouldn't tell"

"He's put his greasy fingers all over my controls" Eos sulked.

"And my lap top!" John almost raised his voice "and pizza crumbs – PIZZA CRUMBS! Get this cleaned up now. There's a mini cleaner over there and wipes in the drawer. I'm going to check out the rest of 5 while you do that."

"But…but...John…"

"Want to argue? Fine, I'll program 3 to go straight back to Tracy Island"

"You can't do that!"

"You think? Don't make me prove it."

John turned on his heel, marching off to investigate the damage inflicted on his bird by his youngest brother.

"Decontaminate it when he leaves it, Eos."

There was a fractional delay. "Can't find that program."

"Sarcasm Eos, sorry. Forget. This is going to take an age to sort out." John moaned as he tripped over one of Alan's t-shirts on the floor.

"Oh lighten up John, a little mess never hurt anyone."

John's jaw dropped and his eyes opened wider than they'd ever done.

"Whaaaat?"

"Sarcasm, John"

"I was thinking you'd spent far too much time with Alan."

"Two hours was too much – two weeks has been unbearable. Please don't do it again."

"I'll try not to."

"Are you **_sure_** he's your sibling?"

John laughed, "Yeh, definitely a Tracy. I think he might've missed mom's influence. Gordon probably would've been every bit as bad if it hadn't been for her. None of the rest of us would be who we are if it hadn't been for her influence. Scott was the best big brother any kid could ever have, he's the rational one…"

"What? Rational?"

"You never had a chance to know the old Scott, the man he was before dad disappeared. We'd all grown up looking to Scott to sort things out and I guess to an extent that's what we did when dad…he tried so hard to be everything everyone expected him to be. It wasn't just IR, there was Tracy Industries and the charitable foundation dad set up in mom's name. It was just too much on top of trying to deal with his own feelings and trying to stay strong for us but maybe he thought that as dad could handle it, he should too. But dad had a whole lot of years and experience under his belt. Anyway, by the time we realised, it was nearly too late. Scott's struggling – we all are; I'm hoping that he'll get back to who he was but I'm not sure it's possible. I'm not sure it's possible for any of us."

"You're still hoping your father turn up? Not very likely is it? We'd have picked up something by now"

"We wont give up, never stop hoping that today may be the day we pick up his signal or get a call for help"

"Not exactly logical, is it?"

"No Eos, it's but it's very human. Now, shall we see how Alan is getting on and then we can unload the equipment I brought."

"Equipment?"

"Mmm – hydroponic equipment."  
"YOU are going to try to grow food?"

"How hard can it be? Botany is just a branch of Physics – right?" John looked into Eos' lens and winked.

"Your logic is so flawed it's difficult to know where to start – but I admire your optimism John." She giggled, following him as he made his way back to his quarters.


	2. Chapter 2

**_Educating Eos 2_**

 ** _A couple of 'Favourites' so maybe this is being accepted in the spirit it was written – a bit of fun (a lot for me writing it )_**

 ** _Hope you enjoy this one_**

John was sitting cross legged on the floor surrounded by metal poles.

"This isn't going quite to plan." He muttered.

"There's a plan?" queried Eos.

"Of **course** there's a plan. It's somewhere over there." John gestured to his right.

"Why is it over there and not where you can read it? You **have** read it, haven't you?"

"Now why would I do that? Takes all the fun out of it. I like a challenge." He grinned.

"Not the most efficient use of your time. I'll never understand humans!"

"Why should you, we don't even understand ourselves" John grinned.

"Let me scan it, I can help you then."

"I think I'd like that Eos – hang on"

He slid across the floor, grabbed the instruction sheet and held it up for her to scan.

"Well John, I think I can say with absolute confidence that you would take many, many hours to construct this thing without reading the instructions – maybe years. So, first you need to sort all the poles into size order – as they were when you unpacked them!"

"OK, OK"

"John…"

He could tell that tone of voice. She wanted to ask something but wasn't sure of how it would be received…so sensitive, definitely sensitive.

"Come on Eos, spit it out."

"I can't 'spit'."

"Just say it, Eos."

"Your mother – you said she'd had an influence on all of you."

"I remember."

"How?"

"We're all different. She treated us differently. Scott was her first so he had a special place but he wasn't favourite – don't think we ever figured out if she had a favourite, she managed to keep everything pretty even – but she talked to him a lot. With me it was my love of all things stellar.'

He returned to his cross legged position as he recalled siting on her lap, leaning back into her as she pointed out the constellations; telling him of the legend as well as the facts.

"With Virgil it was music. She'd sit at the piano for hours with him on her lap playing 'Chopsticks' – I think dad wanted to take an axe to that piano at times!" John smiled as he recalled dad standing at the top of the stairs pleading for some quiet while he tackled some problem. He hadn't thought about it in so long.

"Gordon was her water baby – he was in the pool before he could walk. We didn't have a full sized one to begin with and one day he somehow managed to crawl over to it and fall in. Grandad saw him but by the time he'd run over to it, there was Gordon making his way across doggy paddle."

"Alan was so young when she died, and I was so busy doing my own thing I can't remember her doing anything special with him except just love him. I haven't asked him how much he remembers and he doesn't talk much about her. I suppose no-one wants to upset anyone else."  
"Do you think about her much?"

"Most days EOS – it doesn't hurt as much now. I've learned to live with the huge hole she left in my life and manage to keep busy most of the time. It's one of the reasons I love it up here – it helps me to keep everything in neat little compartments; closing the door on them when it gets too much."

"When dad was around, I used to think that I was 'Out of sight, out of mind'. I'd monitor all the calls, then report to dad. He'd make the decision whether a situation merited our specialised assistance; then I'd go back to monitoring my brothers making sure they were OK and wait for the next call. "

"You know, I once went out on a rescue and when it was over, I was trying to contribute to the discussion and dad said something like 'You've been out on one rescue, Scott's been on all of them' – shut me down completely. Know how that made me feel? Worthless, absolutely worthless – so I spent pretty much all my time up here. Stopped going back home on a regular rotation. "

"I don't want to go back to that – I **can't** go back to it. I've changed; we've all changed. Dad will have changed, whatever has been happening to him will have made sure of that. We'll all be really glad to see him back but what then? We'll be strangers to each other – strangers who happen to know each other extremely well."  
"I think Scott will be the only one of us who'll feel he's failed – he hasn't but none of us knows how to convince him or give him any kind of reassurance."

He dropped the metal bar and put his head in his hands.

"Is this distressing for you John?" There was concern in Eos' voice

"I've often thought about it, but it's easy to push those thoughts out by concentrating on something else. Now I'm talking about it…now I'm putting it into words; makes it more sort of…real."

An alert sounded, John eased himself up off the floor.

"Saved by the bell EOS – time to get to work."


End file.
